There are more than “some” attempts to hack into mobile devices. Those are seen as a weak link because prevously there was little reason to secure them, so security applicatrion development is behind in this area (a subject I’ve written about often).

Turned out that someone in the store installed a program that had Malware with it that then gave thieves access to credit card and debit card numbers. I was one of the ones who had information stolen and to this day PayPal still will not give me a replacement debit card because my original debit card was used illegally so it counted as a black mark against me.

My brother’s a computer engineer and he told me that running one spyware/malware blocker isn’t good enough. He runs two anti-virus programs and three different spyware programs. He also reformats his work hard drive every six months per IBM’s guidelines to be extra cautious. I’ve learned a lot from him!

And these customer service horror stories bring up a good point — if good customer service is important to us, then it’s important to our clients as well (and a good way that FW’s can set themselves apart from their competitors.)

@ Sue — Dang! Here I was all set to blame my kid! Actually I do know it was him because the message started appearing right after he got off, but it’s frustrating to think you can be diligent and only visit reputable sites and still be infected.

It seems if hackers/virus makers are that knowledgeable and talented, they should be using their SuperPowers for good, not evil, and helping to make the world a better place.

And Bank of America is another nightmare. I’ve made three payments with documented proof from both their Web site and my bank statements since June, yet they swear that I’ve not made any payments and have charged me late fees galore. The attorney general is currently battling them for me.

Sometimes, I think these companies just try to get extra money out of you for their own benefit and hope you won’t fight them so that they can get away with it.

Captain Caveman, good discussion topic. I think I most often run into problems with not scheduling my time well. Thankfully, that’s somewhat rare (perhaps I just haven’t taken on enough projects yet for everything to go completely haywire), but it really bothers me when I have to work past my usual bedtime because I need to finish something. I know that seems like an “oh, poor me” problem, but I am so used to going to bed at the same time every night that my brain goes to mush and I start to feel (physically and mentally) awful if I stay up even 15 minutes past bedtime.

I totally sympathize on the cable outage story, but wonder who you use that you got such excellent service. Two years ago, our cable Internet went out any time it rained. Now to the average person, that would suggest that somewhere there was a split in the cable allowing water in. They came and rewired me from the pole into my house and it didn’t solve the problem. There is one other person using Adelphia (now Comcast) on our road and they would go out as well, so we teamed up to tell them it had to be on a line somewhere in our area. After being told we were nuts, the next rainstorm led to yet another outage. This time it rained for four days straight and that was four days without Internet, so my neighbor and I called the state for help only to be told the state doesn’t regulate cable Internet and couldn’t do anything.

To make a long story short, I went four days without Internet and Adelphia thumbed their nose at us. A year of this, I’d have loved to send them packing, but Adelphia was the only high speed Internet in our area, so it was that or dial-up and that wasn’t an option. Instead, I kept logs of the outages, told them that I wasn’t paying for that downtime and they argued at first, but eventually gave up. Meanwhile, try explaining to your boss that Internet’s down four days running and see how many employees keep you on. I spent a lot of time driving to my parents’ house and using their computer.

Thankfully, due to a new push from our governor, all towns are being rewired with new fiber optic cables and that ended my year long problem, but I still get mad that Adelphia didn’t care. I still wait for the day that there are other options for Internet here. Comcast is only minimally better. I don’t have outages, but their email system is constantly eating my emails. I had one email a couple months ago arrive eight months after my friend had sent it, then the same thing happened with an email from my dad a month later.